Coin Toss

Never in my life have I been to so many restaurants in such a short span of time. We’ve eaten out every night here, usually trying a new place or sticking with a favorite (Kanjana’s). Most of the time we’re able to narrow our choice down to just two options, so we do a coin toss to decide which place to eat.

Yesterday, however, we were faced with three equally delicious sounding options. We couldn’t narrow down from the cheap Thai place, the Irish pub, and the burger place. Now, I know some people would immediately go with the Thai place—we are in Thailand after all, right? Well we’ve been eating so much Thai food since we’ve gotten here, and consider that we’ve been traveling in Asia now for about two months. Sometimes, you need a taste of home.

I came up with a brilliant scheme to make our decision from the three options: I put three coins on the ground and turned my back to them. Then, I flung another coin over my shoulder, and whichever coin that thrown coin landed closest to would be the place to go.

Being supposedly indifferent to any option, Billy agreed to this scheme. I was about to toss the coin when he stopped me.

Billy. Wait. Wouldn’t it make more sense if the three coins are next to each other? Look, I’ll put one coin on each point where the tiles meet, that way there’s an equal chance for all of them.

Elliott. Okay sure. So there’s nowhere in particular you want to go to? You would be happy with any of these three options?

Billy. Yeah.

Elliott. Okay, I’m going to toss the coin.

I turn my back to the coins on the ground and toss a coin over my shoulder. It clatters about and lands nearest to the Thai food coin.

Elliott. Okay! Thai food it is. Are you ready to go?

Billy. Yeah, well, the coin only landed near the Thai coin because you threw it in that corner.

Elliott. What are you saying? Do you not want Thai food?

Billy then grabs the three coins.

Billy. We’ll do heads or tails for each coin. Heads we’ll go, tails we won’t.